Sacred Endurance – Available at Amazon
I recently had the honor and joy of reading a pre-release copy of Trillia Newbell’s latest book, Sacred Endurance. When these opportunities come up, I always enjoy them – I enjoy helping authors launch their words out into the world – words that they have poured so much of their heart and soul and time into, in the months…or years…leading up to the release.
What I didn’t realize at the time that I joined the pre-release group, was just how much my own heart needed to read and absorb what Trillia longs to teach us, about what Sacred Endurance, as a Christ follower, looks like.
I tend to read a lot of academically heavy theological books – books that on the weighty questions that my heart has often wrestled with…theodicy, trinity, the very existence of God. I pour over those books with a detached, analytical approach. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, per se – as weird as it sounds, I enjoy that type of study. However, I am sometimes reminded that I can easily protect my soul from confronting what I need to confront in it (sin, lack of commitment to spiritual disciplines, apathy, fears) by keeping what I learn academically, at an arm’s length from what I need at the very core of who I am.
Sacred Endurance was good medicine for my soul. It struck a solid balance between encouragement and challenge. That is one thing I have often appreciated about Newbell’s writings; she writes as if she were sitting across the kitchen table from each of us, enjoying a cup of coffee with us while we chat and talk in the transparent way that only good friends can. Through her approach to writing, I find myself being more honest and transparent with my own self, as I examine and look for “me” within in the pages of this book.
Each chapter addresses a different aspect of the same theme – how to practically find hope and the strength to endure the race that God lays before each and everyone of us; and the lens through which to view not just the little bumps along the way, but the big bumps as well – the ones that bring us to our knees and threaten to convince us that we can’t take another step forward. In reading, I thanked God, as I looked back at my life, and saw that the truths Newbell writes about, have been played out time and time again – and I also found encouragement for the unknown that lays before me. And I dusted off some spiritual disciplines that I have let fall to the wayside as of late, due to the age-old problem of “I’m too busy for that.”
I highly recommend you pre-order (available November 12th) or purchase “Sacred Endurance” once it is released; no matter where you might be on your journey through this world that is not our “home”; you will find it a worthy companion and source of mentoring that we all need from time to time.
